"We Dare Defend Our Rights," Alabama's official motto, is also the title of the Alabama Republican Caucus' 2013 legislative agenda.

Everybody’s got an agenda.

When the Alabama Legislature cranks up the engine for its 2013 session Tuesday, there will be plenty of special interests looking to hop a ride: Doctors, teachers, farmers, accountants – and don’t forget the lawyers. Lots and lots of lawyers.

Even the Tea Party, which is less an organized movement in Alabama than a loose band of autonomous tribes, gathered in Wetumpka this month and set a list of priorities for the session. Their orders to Montgomery: Protect states rights and balance the budget.

“We all agree that the federal government has abandoned any sense of fiscal responsibility and disregards – if not discounts – the unalienable rights of the states and the people,” said Lou Campomenosi, a Tea Party activist from Mobile who attended the conference. “It is therefore imperative that the state Legislature fulfill its duty to protect its citizens from the federal government.”

The group has powerful ally in the House Republican Caucus, led by Speaker Mike Hubbard, R-Auburn. The caucus' agenda is arguably the only one that counts, since they control the levers of power in the state House.

The agenda’s title – “We dare defend our rights,” Alabama’s official motto – is an honest portrayal of its contents.

“Republicans in the House of Representatives understand that the rights of Alabamians are under constant threat from an ever-expanding and encroaching federal government, committed liberal activists and entrenched special interests fighting to preserve the dysfunctional status quo,” Hubbard said in a news release introducing the agenda on Jan. 17.

So what’s in it? Perhaps it’s easier to start with what’s not:

There’s nothing about insurance, which will disappoint coastal residents suffering from high homeowners’ rates.

There’s nothing about charter schools, which will disappoint many in the education community.

And certainly nothing about term limits, which will disappoint pretty much anybody who’s not currently holding elected office in Alabama.

There is a healthy dose of legislation designed to bite the hand of the federal government, which unfortunately remains Alabama’s chief financial benefactor.

There are bills to streamline government, tighten restrictions on abortion clinics, affirm the rights of gun owners and assert the religious freedom of Alabamians. All of which will delight conservatives, dismay Democrats and firmly establish Alabama – was there ever any doubt? – as the reddest of red states.

The state’s least fortunate, meanwhile, find scant hope from elected leaders in an hour of need.

This morning in Wilcox County, one out of two children will arise in poverty. They’ll attend failing schools and face dim prospects for employment. And they’re hardly alone: The nonprofit health care policy group Kaiser Health named Alabama as one of the country’s five worst states to spend your childhood, primarily because of the lack of health insurance.

The poor have no legislative agenda, no influential lobby and no poll to show that helping them will translate to votes. Alabama Arise, a statewide coalition that advocates for low-income Alabamians, said reform of the state's regressive tax system was its top priority heading into the session.

"It’s high on our agenda, but it’s not the issue on which we expect progress this session," said Kimble Forrister, state coordinator for the group.

Alabama’s poor remain one of those inconvenient truths for a state that fashions itself as a model for the rest of the nation. But they’re a stubborn reminder that, no matter what color we paint the car and no matter which direction we point the wheel, the journey is long and the destination is far.

George Talbot is state and national political reporter for the Alabama Media Group. Contact him at gtalbot@al.com or on Twitter @georgetalbot.